


Packets of Sugar

by Rubber_Radish



Category: Blackwell Series (Video Games)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Coffee Shops, Fluff and Angst (Kind of), Gen, Short One Shot, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:19:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26525089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubber_Radish/pseuds/Rubber_Radish
Summary: Rosa's coffee addiction, and Joey's little ways of memorializing it.  Spoilers for Epiphany.
Kudos: 19





	Packets of Sugar

**Author's Note:**

> With the assumption that Joey told Rosa how he died at some point.

It was a night just like any other. They’d hit the streets about an hour ago, roaming around in search for spooks. It was quiet, for the most part. Routine. But every once in a while, one of them would inevitably think of something to comment on.

“Joey?”

Just like that. He cocked an eyebrow. “What is it now?”

“I’ve been wondering,” Red started, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Ghosts don’t have any signs of how they died on them, do they?”

Joey shook his head. “No, they don’t. Would you have wanted to see me all shot up all these years?”

“Well, no, but in movies-“

“ _Again_ with the movies,” he huffed. “Come on, after all this time dealing with the dead, you still think the movies are accurate at all?”

Red shrugged, seemingly unsatisfied with the response. “I suppose you’re right.”

“Of course I am. Come on, for every spook in the world to be floating around maimed, or frozen, or burnt beyond recognition, or simply shot up like I was, that would just be unflattering.”

“Is that really your biggest concern?”

“Eh, it would make our jobs a lot harder at least, don’t you think? Imagine a spook with a big old gash on the back on his head. What would you even say? ‘Have you looked in a mirror lately? Oh, wait... you don’t have a reflection.’”

“Joey.”

“And then he’d say something really meaningful like ‘Huh?’ because, like I said, he’s got a big old gash on the back of his head and probably can’t think straight, or maybe he’d say something like, ‘sir, why do you have so many bullet holes in your torso’, and-“

“Joey!”

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop. But you get my point.”

“Yes, I get it. Why do I even bother asking?” Unamused, she blew away a lock of hair.

He grinned back at her. “Because you like me?”

Red rolled her eyes. “I should ask wherever spirit guides come from whether or not they take refunds.”

“Hey!”

Now she was grinning back, with that stupid cheesy smile of hers.

“Come on, darling,” he coaxed, shaking his head, “we’ve still got things to do.”

She sighed, smile fading as quickly as it had appeared. “We always do.”

He floated a little closer to her as she resumed walking down the street. “Well, it’s not all bad, is it? You’ve got me hanging around. And I think I spotted a coffee stand around the corner.”

“You are such a bad influence,” she said, walking slightly faster.

“But you want one, don’t you?”

“Maybe.” She paused, probably realizing all attempts to deny it were futile. “...yes.”

Joey chuckled. “Well, go get your sugar-laden excuse for a beverage. I’ll be here.”

And, like every other night, she walked up to one of the many 24-hour coffee stands in the city, wallet in hand.

“Yes, could I have a medium coffee, four sugars, please?”

* * *

Joey sat with a sigh, idly stirring a packet of sugar into his drink. The other three sat beside the takeout cup, untouched. It was a dreary-looking day, rain sputtering down, splattering against the large windows of the cafe. He hadn’t brought an umbrella. Hadn’t even thought about it. But look where it’d gotten him.

There were worse things than being stuck inside, though, he surmised, silently unfolding the daily paper. A whole bunch of drivel, as always. But it made him look busy, at the very least, and he had to take what he could get. He’d tried smoking once, and had gotten promptly shooed out the door. Apparently, that had stopped being socially acceptable years ago. So now, he used the paper to try and look busy, whether or not the contents had any actual value to them.

As he took a sip of the coffee, a man approached the table.

“Hey, man. This seat taken?”

Joey looked over at the speaker a moment. Average looking guy. Messy brown hair. Dressed in a t-shirt and cargo shorts, despite the weather. “Go ahead.”

“Cool, man. Real cool.” The kid took a long sip from an icy slush loosely disguised as coffee. “So, you’re a regular here, huh? Me too. I see you come in all the time.”

“Just about.” It was Red’s favorite, after all. It bothered him that he could feel the edges of his memory fraying away like an old blanket. Maybe it was just too much memory for one brain to handle. But he didn’t want to forget. Didn’t want to forget Danny and Linda, didn’t want to forget Lauren, or even old Pattycakes, didn’t want to forget _her._

“So, what’s up with the sugar?”

Joey looked up from the article he was pretending to read, still lost in thought. “Hm?”

“The sugar. You always get four of them. But you never use the other three.”

“What do you think you are, a detective or something?”

The kid laughed, brushing his bangs from his face. “Nah. But, like, I used to really be into those detective books when I was younger. You ever read the Bailey School Kids?”

“What?”

“What about Nancy Drew? Those books are classics, date back to the ‘30s.”

Joey shook his head, going back to gaze out the window. The rain wasn’t slowing in the least, so he could either chance it without an umbrella, or endure more of this fellow’s aimless rambling. And the longer he sat here, the better the former was starting to sound.

“Not the talkative sort of guy, huh?”

A chuckle forced its way out of his throat. He could still picture her face pouting at him, arms crossed. _‘Joey, do you_ ever _shut up?’_

And he’d just smile incessantly back, for the sole purpose of annoying her. _‘Now, why would I do that? You’d be lonely.’_

“The sugar just reminds me of someone I used to know,” he finally said, looking at the three packets lying on the table.

“I bet it was a girl, huh? Those kind of dumb sentimental things are always about chicks.”

Joey picked up his cup, taking a sip. “Kind of. She was more than that, though. I don’t know if I could even begin to explain it.”

“Nah, man, you don’t got to,” the kid said, in a surprisingly understanding manner. “We all have those people.”

“Yeah,” he replied numbly, staring at the distorted reflection of himself on the surface of his coffee. “We do.”

After the rain died down, Joey folded up the paper and made his way back to the apartment with the stupid pink walls he couldn’t bear to get rid of, and dropped the excess sugar packets into a rapidly filling basket sitting beside Griff on the bookshelf. He liked to think he could give them to her someday, whenever that might be.

It was a stupid ritual, and he knew it. And yet... He ran his fingers over the hastily attached sticky note with her name written on it. Sometimes it was the little things. The nonsensical things.

Whatever it took to remember.


End file.
